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If Nick was to be blunt, he'd tell you that as far as he could see the whole thing was of moot point. The evidence seemed pointless and really what was left to find out? Whoever the person was that was doing this stuff, they were damn good at keeping their identity a secret, and there was little to nothing left behind to work with. All Nick saw was more evidence proving what they already knew: people were dead and somebody did it. He wondered if he really was as good as Bryant had thought because to him it seemed more like Agent Bryant needed like a prophet or some sort of clairvoyant. As it was, Nick was fresh out of crystal balls. Bryant, though, seemed pleased enough with the evidence, and hell, who was Nick to rain on his parade?

They were sifting through the evidence collected from the two crime scenes in Europe. What seemed like pointless crap was stored carefully into ziplock bags that were dated, numbered and lettered for filing. Nick looked at the stuff over and over trying to see what purpose it could possibly serve in solving the case and it seemed like he no longer got his mind wrapped around the idea that some desperate investigator had grabbed whatever he could find to catalogue, Bryant would pick up the same thing and piece together a storyline that accented perfectly the truth that they'd already covered in the debriefing. For instance, Bryant was holding up a necklace which Lorriane Saches was famous for wearing to every photo shoot and catwalk session she'd ever done in her entire career. Urban legend, Ivana had explained, said that Miss. Saches never removed the necklace, ever, even off the job, because she felt an emotional connection to it that had never been publicly revealed. Bryant inspected it carefully. Nick was looking over his shoulder. It was just a necklace, he thought. Yeah, it was weird the girl had taken it off the night she died, but a billion things could've explained that. But Bryant rolled his finger over the clasp. "It's broken," he stated, "To me, that suggests the piece was pulled from her neck forcefully." He laid it back into a plastic bin of evidence he was categorizing as especially useful. "Maybe it'll have a finger print," he told Nick, his voice pitching with excitement, "Wouldn't that be amazing?"

Nick had nodded, but what he'd wanted to say was that no, the only thing he personally thought would be amazing right at that moment was a huge cup of coffee, preferably containing about seventeen thousand times more caffeine than your average cup of joe. Funnily enough Nick was having issues finding a decent cup of coffee. For a country who revolutionized the art of making the stuff -- lattes and cafe au laits, those were French, right? -- there was ridiculously little amounts of the stuff. The headquarters had actually offered them all TEA instead of coffee. TEA!!!! For COPS!!!! Even Bryant had found that weird, but he'd gotten over it faster than Nick did. Nick hated tea, for one, and for two... helloooo? It's coffee! When he'd whined to Raquel - the receptionist - about it, she'd responded, "We'll see what we can do." But his coffee had never come. Man, what he wouldn't do for like a Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts or something.... Pretty much anything. Hell, he'd even settle for gas station coffee!

Bryant held up a baggie with a piece of white cloth inside it. Just a little piece, all ripped and frayed at one end. Nick raised an eyebrow. "What... the... hell...?"

"This is a shred of cloth found in the emergency fire escape leading from the penthouse suite in the Grande Hilton Hotel. It was ripped from an article of clothing believed to have been worn by the Masquerade Murderer," Bryant replied, "It was caught on the railing."

Ivana jumped into the conversation, "That isn't a very reliable piece of evidence," she informed Bryant, "There's no telling that it belonged to the murderer."

Bryant shrugged, "There's no telling that it DIDN'T, either." He examined it, turning the bag over in his hands.

AJ was leaning against the wall in a plastic chair in the corner, pushing the chair back so that the front two legs were off the floor. He could almost hear his mother telling him to sit in the chair right or he was gonna break his neck. He let the chair fall forward, causing a clatter that made Bryant, Focque and Nick all look at him in surprise. "So.. when are we gonna start, like... actually... you know, detecting shit?" he asked.

Bryant laid the evidence down. "What do you think we're doing now, exactly?"

AJ shrugged, "Staring at useless crap in sandwich bags." Nick snorted, trying to contain a laugh. Bryant shot him a look before turning back to AJ. "We should have like magnifying glasses," AJ continued, "And wear those stupid hound’s-tooth hats and jackets," he paused. "We should have some guy named Watson around so we can say shit like, 'Eureka, my dear Watson! Eureka!'"

Ivana chuckled, "Someone's read a few too many Sherlock Holmes novels," she teased.

"Sherlock Holmes?" Nick asked, scrunching up his nose, "Dude, AJ.... he wasn't an FBI agent, he was a private eye, dumbass."

AJ rolled his eyes, "Dumbass, he was from London, and plus they didn't HAVE the FBI back then... Besides, even now it's the same thing."

"Nuh-uh!!" Nick argued. The two detectives turned back to the evidence while the Boys fought. "Private eyes investigate like marital affairs and shit like that, not real important stuff!"

AJ laughed, "You asshole, Sherlock Holmes solved murders. Didn't you ever read the books?"

"No," Nick admitted, shaking his head.

"Besides," AJ barreled on, "Lurking after some super rich guy who's in love with some pretty little cocktease is probably less boring than sitting here doing THIS crap is."

"You didn't HAVE to come, moron," Nick snapped, "You invited yourself, REMEMBER?" AJ sighed and turned away.

Bryant broke in, "Okay you chuckleheads, are you quite through?" They nodded. "Okay, good. Because we're about to head over to the Grande Hilton to check out the Penthouse Suite."

AJ jumped up, "Okay, NOW it's getting interesting.... Let's go."

-----

Fifteen minutes later, the four of them were in the lobby of the Grande Hilton hotel. Nick glanced about the lobby fleetingly. The whole room carried memories of his vacation there with Paris and he felt uneasy, like she was about to pop up out of the wood work at any moment. Bryant had led them through the heavy doors to the reception desk, where the clerk had informed him that the hostess would be down momentarily to escort them to the penthouse suite crime scene. Nick stood behind a fichus plant, looking at a plaque that hung on the wall and hitting the elevator door buttons, making them open and close. When he'd stayed there with Paris they'd done some not-so-innocent things on the penthouse elevator. He could still remember the dress she'd had on that day- it was orange. She'd looked sort of like carrot, but at the time he'd thought it was sexy as hell. Now, he was just feeling very paranoid.

Suddenly AJ appeared at his side and nudged him. "Hey, wouldn't it be really awkward if the hostess was---" AJ hadn't even got the words out of his mouth before, on the other side of the ficus from where they stood, the elevator doors parted and an all too familiar smell filled Nick's nostrils. He froze. His face flushed and his hands went clammy. What the hell were the odds?

Paris Hilton floated out of the elevator and across the lobby to Ivana and Bryant. She wasn't wearing the carrot dress -- thank God -- instead she had on a short dress with various shades of pink butterflies printed all over it. She had on pink pumps and long dangly earrings that drew the eyes to her face. Her hair was shorter than Nick recalled it ever being. Paris extended a hand to Agent Focque as she closed the distance between herself and the FBI agents. "Hey Ivanna," she drawled, giggling, "Loves the bag..." She pointed to a leather bag Ivana had slung over her elbow. "So happy you're here..." she turned to Agent Bryant and smiled. "I'm Paris," she said, as though there were a human being on earth that didn't know that...

Bryant shook her hand, "Agent Bryant, FBI New York." Bryant motioned towards Nick and AJ. "And these," he said, "Are Agent Carter and Agent McLean, also FBI New York."

Paris turned to shake their hands as they stepped out from behind the fichus rather reluctantly, but stopped when her eyes landed on them. Her face paled. "They..." she pointed, "...are FBI agents?"

Bryant nodded, "Honorary."

Paris laughed, "That's hott." She looked at Nick, then turned away to face Bryant, giving the Boys the cold shoulder. "If you come with me, I'll show you the penthouse." She turned and began leading the way to the penthouse elevator.

Ivana and AJ both followed her onto the elevator, but Nick paused and grabbed Bryant's shoulder. "Can I wait down here?" he asked, "This is..really weird for me."

Bryant raised an eyebrow, "Agent Carter, you need to look at this crime scene. It's important evidence. Don't let the girl scare you off... It's all about business this week, like I've told AJ a million times already." With that, he turned and joined the others in the elevator. Nick sighed and joined as well... highly reluctantly.